What, Exactly, Is Going On With The Minecraft Movie, Anyway?

The final trailer for A Minecraft Movie has disappointed fans who expected animation like previous Minecraft content rather than a Jumanji-style live-action film with Jack Black as Steve. Despite criticism of its animation quality blocky-real world blend and childish tone the movie will likely still attract families with young children when it releases in April 2025.

The final trailer for the upcoming Minecraft movie has been released, and fans…aren’t exactly happy. Soon to be released in April of 2025, A Minecraft Movie aims to tell the story of four people who are mysteriously pulled into Minecraft’s blocky “Overworld,” where they meet the titular Minecraft Steve (played by Jack Black). In order to return to their own world, they’ll have to help save the Overworld, too.

If this sounds like yet another Jumanji ripoff, you’re not exactly wrong. Fans of the Minecraft video game were expecting something rather different from the three released trailers for A Minecraft Movie. 

To get an idea of what A Minecraft Movie was ‘supposed’ to be according to fans, we’ll need to take a miniature dive into the history of Minecraft lore. Back in 2015 — a year after the concept of a Minecraft movie first blossomed in the mind of studio execs — Minecraft: Story Mode was released. This epic point-and-click fantasy video game followed the adventures of five in-game Minecraft characters who were searching for the original architects of Minecraft’s Overworld itself. The game was a choose your own adventure with multiple different endings, all produced by the iconic studio Telltale Games. 

The company behind Minecraft: Story Mode has since gone bankrupt, leaving Minecraft lovers with no way to play the game besides pirating it. What you really need to know about the game, however, was that it impressed fans of Minecraft at the time. It featured high-quality animation that breathed new life into Minecraft’s universe, a compelling narrative, a family-friendly plot that wasn’t overly gimmicky, and topnotch voice acting to boot. It was the first side game that introduced to Minecraft fans the idea of beautifully animated Minecraft spinoffs.

This was also around the time where independently released Minecraft-related animations became popular. These animations, usually published via YouTube, took the main characters and mobs from the Minecraft video game and made them more detailed and fluid, bringing to life the universe of the Minecraft game in a major way. Though none of these videos were official, they were enjoyed by both kids and adults alike, giving gaming YouTubers a successful genre to follow for the next several years.

All this is to say that Minecraft fans have been trained to hold extremely high expectations for an animated Minecraft movie. If their favorite YouTubers can create a studio-worthy production that can be watched for free, a Minecraft movie that fans will have to pay for should be even better, right? Right?

The absolute biggest issue with A Minecraft Movie is undoubtedly its animation, which rivals Sonic’s original animated form in 2020’s Sonic the Hedgehog (complete with the same horrifyingly realistic teeth). Part blocky, part textured, A Minecraft Movie’s world does absolutely nothing to blend the real-world characters with the poorly-styled square Overworld around them. The film also lacks most Minecraft animation’s typical pixelated design, a hallmark of the original video game.

Based on the trailers, it’s becoming abundantly clear to fans that the movie’s producers don’t understand how to walk the line between family-friendly and fun for adults to watch, too. Unlike old animated children’s movie classics, which are fun for adults to watch regardless of whether or not the entire family is watching with them, many modern movies have pivoted towards a dialogue and plot that is truly only built to interest the youngest of audiences. A Minecraft Movie is no different here.

A young teen playing the very first version of Minecraft when it was initially released would now be in their early 30s today. That’s not to say that every casual adult Minecraft fan will be interested in watching a movie about a video game they might not have played in years — but Minecraft does host a relatively wide adult fanbase. One primary target audience for this movie (who would now be anywhere from ages 13 to 30) is somewhat isolated by the knowledge that this movie ignores the expectations of fans of the original game.

One final issue that most viewers are taking with the movie is that it combines the video game with real-world characters, something that most Minecraft players aren’t used to. The charm of the Minecraft world is that everything in it is pixelated — and the pre-existing characters from the Minecraft realm already have a lot of built-in lore around them, so why make an entirely new universe that ignores all of that?

There aren’t many people who take issue with the fact that Jack Black has taken on the role of Minecraft’s Steve, but it’s a little jarring to see his un-animated self playing such a recognizable character.

So, after all that, will the Minecraft movie be a flop? The likely answer is…probably not. At the end of the day, A Minecraft Movie — despite fans’ initial expectations — is meant for young children. Families with little kids will undoubtedly fill theater seats, no matter what critics have to say about the movie. There will probably even be a few other demographics who buy tickets for nostalgia’s sake — or out of curiosity, at the very least.

A Minecraft Movie certainly won’t be everything its fans hoped it would be a whopping eleven years ago when the idea was first cooked up. But it likely won’t be a box office failure, either — at least in terms of finances. Just as Minecraft: Story Mode has been lost to bankruptcy, so too has the idea of a compelling Minecraft movie narrative fallen to the sands of time.